“Oh WOW,” she said, and as exclamations go, there are few finer.
The source of this particular wow was a brand spanking new birder who was on her very first bird outing. The object being wowed about was a small, mostly black and white bird clinging to the outer needles of a white pine.
And while some (most notably those old enough to remember an age before color television) might conclude that WOW over-states the case when regarding a black-and-white bird it should be noted that this description remains incomplete in one stupendous regard.
Photo by Cal Vornberger.
Where this particular mostly black and white bird is not white is on its throat. The throat is gladden your heart, catch your breath, bright as sunshine, yellow. It makes the bird look absolutely stunning and it makes human observers say:
“WOW!”
So did I the first time I saw a Yellow-throated Warbler.
It was in the woods behind my parents’ home in Whippany, New Jersey. The date was July 5th. I was in my teens. I am recalling this from memory.
“How,” an objective reader might wonder, “could anyone remember something as insignificant as the date of their first encounter with a bird?”
Answer: It’s not insignificant. Not the bird. Not the date. Not the location.
The fact is, the warbler that rates a “wow” was, back when I was in my teens, regarded as a rare bird in New Jersey. It was known to breed in Cape May. There was a breeding record dating May 21, 1922. In 1954, the bird was also discovered breeding on Bull’s Island in the Delaware River, north of Trenton.
It was probably, even back when Dwight David Eisenhower was president, more common than these records allow–breeding, very probably, throughout southern New Jersey pine woods and along the Delaware River to Toks Island. But when I stumbled upon the bird behind my parents’ house, it was (to my mind) only slightly more likely than Ivory-billed Woodpecker (which I had never seen, either).
So there I was and there it was. This gorgeous black and white and yellow-throated bird. Foraging on the branches and poking among the leaves above my head. A bird I had only seen as an illustration. But one that was instantaneously recognizable.
And that was the most remarkable part of all. You see, when I used to study the field guide, I looked at this bird and thought “boy this is sure going to be hard to separate from female Blackburnian Warbler.”
Nope. Difference was night and day. Female Blackburnian Warblers make you say “AH.” Yellow-throateds make you say “WOW.”
I think my next Yellow-throated Warbler was on Bull’s Island–that celebrated hotspot. It’s where everyone went to get the bird on a North Jersey big day. When I got to Cape May and Cumberland Counties it became apparent that the birds were more common than was commonly held. Then a guy named Dave Ward, from Avalon, began prowling around Belleplain State Forest and discovered that the birds were almost vermin.
That doesn’t diminish the bird. It’s stunning whether they come one at a time or boxed by the dozen.
No matter how many times you see them, they rate a “WOW.” Doesn’t matter if you are the world’s newest birder or most jaded.